Dinosaur taphonomy

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Summary

Students collaboratively investigate a dinosaur site by gathering clues about the sediments and bones. The assigment provides practice in formulating hypotheses, distingushing evidence from intepretation, and some understanding of the inferences that can be made from the fossil record.

Higher order thinking skills goals for this activity

Other skills goals for this activity

> working in groups

Description of the activity/assignment

In preparation for this assignment, students have read a brief section in their textbook on the fossilization process as it relates to dinosaurs. In addition they will have had one lecture on taphonomy that briefly covers the processes that transpire from the death of a dinosaur until its discovery by a paleontologist. Students work in groups. Each group is given a quarry map of a dinosaur locality and no other information. The exercise is framed as detecive work, where the "scene of the crime" is represented by the quarry map. The objective is to gather clues to make an informed intepretation. Students can obtain additional clues, but to do so, they must formulate a hypothesis that can be tested by the information they seek. However, they only get to formulate 10 hypotheses. An untestable hypothesis wastes a potential clue. Once students have gathered all their clues, they are encouraged to discuss the significance. Students write up their own interpretation and its limitations individually. The exercise gives students practice with taphonomic data and both its potential and limitations; hypothesis formulation; and examining differing viewpoints as group discussions often lead to debates about what information would be most important.

Determining whether students have met the goals

There is no formal evaluation.
However, students each write up their own final interpretation and limitations. Additionally, there is generally a lot of discussion between students and instructors about clues during the exercise.

Download teaching materials and tips

ADDITIONAL INFO:More information on this exercise and examples of clues can be accessed through a powerpoint
found at http://serc.carleton.edu/NAGTWorkshops/paleo/workshop09/program.html

For this activity I use two dinosaur sites:
1) Cleveland-Lloyd Quarry
Bilbey, 1999 (Gates, 2005)
2) Yale Deinonychus Quarry
Maxwell and Ostrom, 1995
I chose these sites because they are:
1) controversial with multiple interpretations.
2) have references with the needed clues.
3) relate to class lectures on behavior.
Additionally, within the classroom I prefer to have
adjacent groups(tables) working on different sites.

CLUE GATHERING:
Clues are on separate sheets of paper that provide brief descriptions of various site attributes.
For example, there may be sheets on the dinosaurs species represented, bone weathering, lithologies, sedimentary structures, bite marks, etc.
Students request information one clue at a time. To receive a clue, they must formulate a hypothesis and explain how a specific type of information would test that hypothesis. For example, they might propose the assemblage represents a mass mortality and request information on bone weathering. A hypothesis might be that if the dinosaurs died together at one time, their remains should show uniform weathering.
In practice, the exercise requires the instructor to provide some prompts/assistance to students in linking hypotheses with physical/observable information.

APPLICATION ELSEWHERE:
Suitable for any taxonomic group - mammals, trilobites, reef assemblages. Just get the right reference or make it up.
Perhaps suitable for general vert/invert. paleontology class where specimens unavailable.

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This item is offered under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/ You may reuse this item for non-commercial purposes as long as you provide attribution and offer any derivative works under a similar license.